Establish international non-profit organization that
works
on various ways to help farmers get off Monsanto and
back
on their feet. Going to court in their name and reverting
the charges, proving that Monsanto's actions were
precarious and detrimental,
that their grain was
deliberately spread although not beneficial for the
farmers.

[Added:] Even create genes to be shown in the Monsanto
farmer grains - and fight them with their own tactics, to
get the farmers off the Monsanto draconian contracts.

There is big money in getting back the land and sources,
and distribution lines. And there is also an important
ethical incentive for doing so. The battle should and can
continue around the world.

Food is something that will always be needed, and
producing it in a non-industrial, sustainable and more
natural way, distributed between farmers, is obviously
the
way to go.

Monsanto seed casehttp://en.wikipedia...man_v._Monsanto_Co."...the Court unanimously affirmed the Federal Circuit and held that patent exhaustion does not permit a farmer to reproduce patented seeds through planting and harvesting ... [Voice, May 08 2014]

Feb 2001, GRAIN.org article on 'Golden' rice.http://www.grain.or...een-from-the-groundThe technology was acquired by AstraZeneca but wasn't created by any of the big agri-businesses but was, rather, developed independently by publicly funded scientists. [DrBob, May 18 2014]

Sorry Max. That is a common error. Intensive
farming
never uses "a smaller area". Because of machinery
it
always prefers larger and larger areas. Big fields.
Giant warehouse facilities, where nothing can
stand in the middle, even if is not totally
necessary. Also, it is
NOT the only way to prevent famine and to feed
the world. O&#1502; the contrary:

Intensive farming prefers ruining natural resources
(like large lakes) to create a single area of
production, and takes the animals and plants away
from a large area around it, then sending the
produce around the world to places that cannot
compete and therefore stop growing their own
local and healthy food.

The waste from that
industry is usually "treated" at large waste-
treatment plants, further taking away natural
resources, and many times still occasionally having
long lasting and far reaching poisonous effects on
its surroundings.

The ministry of environment together with the
ministry of health had your idea in mind when
they preferred to unify all the dairy farms in our
area, and bring all the cows into one large
automatic industrial cow shed. The result was
years of suffering for two towns from the stench
and the salting of many fields surrounding the
kibbutz, as the waste water treatment factory
built downstream could not cope with the
resulting waste. It was not an engineering error,
or calculation mistake.

It was a built-in conceptual fallacy, disproved by
reality. Other Kibbutzim that used constructed
wetlands along with their "unified cow farms" and
who let their cows graze, discovered that the
whole environment was better, the cows were
healthier, and the milk product was preferred by
the customers, and hence by the three large milk
companies.

Same with intensive graze cattle growing and
fishponds in the Golan heights and Kinneret lake
area. Every winter the waste from these farming
areas is taken to the Jordan river, in fact "killing
the river" along several kilometers. The efforts to
save the river are costing millions of dollars and
threatening to stop the fish farms and cattle
growers altogether. Again, in the same area, there
are those who have built sustainable farms, can
supply the needs without confining their cattle to
a contained area, but also without killing all the
surroundings to "clean it up, and make it civil".

I have worked with two large Israeli sustainable
fish pond farming companies. Instead of fighting
the birds (millions pass through the Jordan river on
their way from Europe to Africa and back) they
work to coexist with them, and instead of
creating weak antibiotic loaded fish, they have
naturally healthy fish, with natural water cleaning
processes in place.

The Yarkon river became a major health threat to
Tel Aviv, getting its claim of fame after the
Maccabia bridge disaster in 1997. The current
Yarkon River Rehabilitation Center teaches how
removing the concrete and re-establishing the
river "bends" saves not only the natural habitat
but also millions of dollars allowing for the
treatment and reuse of water in a self contained
system using no external energy, while removing
all the health hazards to the hundreds of
thousands of residents in the immediate vicinity,
turning it into a beautiful recreation park area.

[pashute], you are missing the point that [Max]
made. Just consider the TOTAL land area devoted
to farming. To produce a certain total amount of
food, you need less land area when you farm it
intensively. That means all the rest of the land
area could be left alone as natural habitat. As it
is, though, habitats are getting destroyed to make
room for non-intensive farming.

THEN the industrialized farming companies come
in to obtain that land and start farming it
intensively --ONLY because total human population
keeps going up. The real solution is to focus on
ending the population explosion. Without that,
ALL habitats for other species will eventually be
doomed (imagine Siberia's forests chopped down
and the land covered with greenhouses, for
example).

[Vernon], I have addressed exactly that point. My
claim is that if milk (as an example) was produced
in a distributed way, on many local farms, it would
actually be "taking" LESS land area, because a lot
of that area wouldn't be "taken" and moreover
would actually be GAINING from the farming
process. Even as of the immediate use of that
land. I pointed out also the far reaching effects,
which take "land use" way outside the bounded
area designated as the current intensive
industrialized farm.

Natural habitats cannot be left alone with
intensive industrial farming. It is they who want a
sterile and controlled environment with nothing
natural left standing.

Non intensive farming, and I'm talking about
modern sustainable methods, know how to co-
exist with nature and in many cases even RESTORE
a healthy natural habitat.

I think the point is that I don't view a traditional
farm as a very natural ecosystem. True, it looks
nicer than a modern intensive farm, and does
have a greater biodiversity, but it's not a natural
ecosystem.

You can talk about farming "in harmony with
nature", and it's true that that helps some
species, but it's a poor compromomise.

So, from my perspective, any farmed land is "lost"
to farming, and the less the better. On that basis,
intensive farming is better, if one assumes that a
given amount of food must be produced.

By the same token, it's better for the natural
environment (though not for us) if we all live in
megacities rather than sprawling out in villages
everywhere.

//Actually, that's probably not the case. At least in
environmental terms, it's better to farm a smaller
area intensively than to farm a much larger area
using traditional methods.//
The truth of this depends on what you consider
traditional. If we just consider farming in the US
to fix the time line, present day farming is living
off the glut of cheap oil. Classical farming lives off
the glut of cheap soil. It is only by going back to
the Native Americans can you get to a truly
sustainable farming system.

[pashute] Is correct that mass cattle farms are
unsustainable and I will only add that he missed
one key feature that needs to be added,
rotational grazing it turns the manure issue into a
benefit. You need to keep the animals together,
so the manure is together, have the animals work
it into the soil and then leave it alone for a while.
That is what Allan Savory found out.

//As it is, though, habitats are getting destroyed
to make room for non-intensive farming.//
Actually if done correctly non-intensive farming is
very close to natural habitat with the exception
that the mixture of plants is skewed to the human
edible or support of the human edible, such as is
needs to include three seasons of flowers for bees
for pollination.

Google "Permaculture Orchard" or "food forest" and
you will see some of the most beautiful places on
Earth that just happen to be filled with food. The
key is to move away from annual plants and
towards perennials. Go to MIracle Farms (link) and
tell me that isn't prettier than your local park and
it does so while also being healthier than your
local park and producing three times the amount
of food per acre than a standard farm and doing it
without pesticides or fertilizer.

// It is only by going back to the Native Americans
can you get to a truly sustainable farming
system.//

Absolutely not. First, Native Americans
transformed large swathes of land in various ways
(so, sustainable only in the sense of sustainably
altering the environment).
Second, such a system is not sustainable today,
unless you first kill 90% of the population.

As [Vernon] pointed out, we need to dramatically
reduce the population if we want to have much
less environmental impact. In the meantime,
concentrating our needs into the smallest
possible areas is probably the least harmful
option.

I don't understand the sustainable vs altering the
environment. We are people, we mess with stuff.
What I mean by sustainable is that
the system produces without requiring external
inputs. Present Agriculture works by externally
turning 1% of of all man made power yearly to
create ammonia to be used as fertilizer (link). This
is not sustainable. Permaculture use plants that
work with Rhizobium bacteria to pull nitrogen out
of the air to avoid the need for nitrogen
fertilizers. Present agriculture tills the ground to
kill the Mycelium to release their nutrients, but no
till farming encourages the Mycellium to continue
mining the soil for the other needed nutrients and
then releasing them naturally. Again tilling is not
sustainable, it basically burns the soil to power a
years worth of growth. Then present farming
leaves the soil uncovered so the dead soil either
blows or washes away. Iowa looses 5.2 tons of soil
per year (link)

//such a system is not sustainable today, unless
you first kill 90% of the population//
No, that's not true, look at "one straw revolution"
(link) and you will see that it actually creates more
food. Much more food. Oh and in the mean time
it pulls all the carbon out of the air. Where do you
think all those petroleum reserves came from? Win,
win, win, win... Oh wait, perennial plants don't
need seeds every year, so Monsanto looses, so
win, win, win, win, win...

Wait, I have to mention bees. Because if you talk
about the stupidity of present farming you should
at least mention that we are killing bees by the
billions (10^9, I realize it is different some places).
You see bees like many of us like to eat more than
once a year, but MANY bees (50% of all Honeybees
(link)) are needed to pollinate almonds, and
almonds only flower once a year. So there aren't
enough local bees to do the work, so we truck
them in, 2.5 million hives per year. And during the
drive, they don't get normal food, they like us, get
travel food, like corn syrup. So some , like us,
probably get sick on the road and then they are all
released to go to work. Think of it like daycare,
times a billion. If one gets sick, they may all get
sick. So big surprise, they have this disease called
CCD that has killed 1/4 trillion (yes, trillion with a
T, 10^12 not 10^18, but still I think it's a lot) bees
since 1994.

So the present system is the one that isn't
sustainable. The present system is a hot air
balloon that will run out of propane and when it
does it will crash. If you don't believe me, look at
Cuba. They lived it. They used to have oil and
present day farming and then Russia turned off
the spicket. Did they kill 90% of their population?
Nope, there were some lean years, but they made
it through and they actually live longer now. It is
probably the fresh vegetables. Many of their cities
are looking to be self-sustaining! As someone who
lives just outside NYC, I find that AMAZING!

2) Scientists + Lawyers to find currently non-
patented DNA in species to then patent it as a
counter defense.

Well, I think this shows the right promise, but you're
attempting to fight them at their own game, head
on. That will take huge resources. Furthermore,
that will drive us down the destructive path of
patenting too many genes that already occur in
nature, which will have very bad consequences.

For example, fighting them head on legimitimizes
their claim that you can't save seeds & reproduce
crops naturally, you have to buy new seeds from
Monsanto each year, or you're violating the IP in the
DNA in those seeds. Imagine that extended if
someone patents human DNA the same way. You
can't have kids naturally as you'd violate their IP.
You'd have to buy babies from tubes, or at least pay
a license to procreate the patented genes in your
body.

So, in short, we need some solution that doesn't
legitimize the problem.

//As evil as Monsanto is, YOU try to feed
7,000,000,000 people each day.

OK. Did you try? What happened? Oh,
6,000,000,000 of them starved because there was
no other way than this evil Monsanto way.//

What Monsanto does, is a flash in the pan, get rich
quick scheme. They started doing something
useful and made some money. Then they decided
to game the system, convince government that
helping Monsanto was helping the family farmer.
All the while they screwed over the family farmer.
They gamed the system to make sure that the only
crops farmers could grow, where the ones that got
them addicted to Monsanto. Then once addicted
they are now pulling the rug out from under the
farmers and sicking their lawyers on any farmer
who has avoided their grasp.
Now even the latest schemes are failing as the
pesticides are poisoning the soil so much that
even with all the subsidies, it is becoming more
profitable to not grow Monsanto. But this demon
will not go down without a fight, so it will now do
whatever it takes to force farmers to buy from
them, have the government pay for it all and deny
you any right to find out all the evil that they do.
Vermont just passed a law to force GMO foods to
be labeled as such, but Monsanto is paying to get
a federal law created to overturn it.

//So what? How sustainable were zeppelins?"//
There are a lot of things that work as great stop
gap measures. What we want to avoid is a
company enforcing the extension of their lifespan
by leveraging the force of government.
I liked zeppelins, but I don't think airplanes should
have been banned because the zeppelin people
have convinced the government that hydrogen
producers are a key piece of our heritage and
need subsidies, while using their lawyers to
ensure the hydrogen producers can NEVER
produce anything but hydrogen and have to buy all
their supplies from the zeppelin people and as
such are sinking into a never ending pit of debt
that they can never escape from.

//As evil as Monsanto is, YOU try to feed
7,000,000,000 people each day.//
Again, they had their day. They served their
purpose, but that is the old way. If we stick with
it then we will starve or will continue to starve.
Their way has been tried and worked for a while,
so all this idea is saying is make sure that alternate
systems are allowed to be tried, so that we can
actually feed 7,000,000,000 people today and
possibly billions more tomorrow.

Actually [Max] I think there are studies that looked at the efficiency of industrial vs. traditional farming. While industrial undoubtably produces greater yield per man-hour of labour and also per cost input (disregarding externalities), I think that generally traditional agriculture produces higher yields per unit area of land - at the expense of taking a lot more labour.

The externalities of industrial farming are pretty huge as well especially considered over the medium to long term (i.e. soil degradation). I think a lot of traditional farming is sustainable in terms that it could continue indefinitely, renewing the resources it consumes. This is not true of industrial farming.

Anyone who's proposing a radical change to our methods of food production needs to explain where they plan to find 500 million tons of biologically available nitrogen per year. [Two links for the price of one!]

We hear a lot about anthropogenic carbon emissions, but what of the nitrogen?

(Besides, what's unsustainable about making ammonia in factories? The atmosphere's enormous and it's mostly made of the stuff; by the time it starts to run dry we'll have reached the asteroids, where there's even more ammonia just waiting for the taking.)

Monsanto no more care about feeding people than McDonalds do. All they care about is maximising their profits, and they will do what ever they can to serve that interest. All anyone has to know about Monsanto is that they are a company quite prepared to make products like Agent Orange when it suits them.

I detest Monsanto as much as KFC and McDonalds, who share the common interest of serving whatever kind of stinking muck they can legally label as food as long as the profits are big enough.

Monsanto sells seeds that farmers choose to buy in a
competitive, open market because the seeds offer
better yield. There's no rational reason to call it
evil. The only real objections are based on the gut
feeling that GM seeds must have something wrong
with them.

There was some noise about Monsanto suing farmers
for having some cross-contaminated seed. If those
allegations were true it would be a terrible thing to
do. It turns out the farmers being sued were
deliberately seeding with patented roundup
resistant seed and then using roundup because they
knew they could.

Traditional legacy seeds are widely available. Don't
blame Monsanto for offering an alternative, blame
farmers for using it. If you feel GM seeds are actually
unhealthy all you have to do is prove it.

//If we stick with it then we will starve or will
continue to starve.// I agree that the lack of
diversity inherent in modern farming practices is
dangerous but the only way to mitigate the danger
is to build up a massive store of genetically varied
seeds. That wont' be done by farmers. To expect it
is to expect them to use less efficient methods for
the greater good.

The danger from genetically modified seeds is
moderate, but not immaterial -- if only in the
sense that any kind of programming has bugs.
Having said that, the net benefit to humanity will
likely outweigh any real risks, and most of the
argument is really over money.

// I detest Monsanto as much as KFC and
McDonalds, who share the common interest of
serving whatever kind of stinking muck they can
legally label as food as long as the profits are big
enough.
 xenzag//

This view of the world, the one where the word
profit has to drip with enough venom to eat
through the page never ceases to amaze me. Who
do you think benefits from McDonalds making a
profit? Martians? Why does McDonalds make a
profit? Cause you're the only one who's smart
enough to see through it, but the billions -- or at
least hundreds of millions -- that go are all morons
to be saved from themselves by you? what sheer
fucken hubris and idiocy

I didn't say a small collection of widely varied seeds. If
1/3 of the world's corn crop dies next year because
most corn is vulnerable to the same disease we'll need
warehouses of genetically varied corn to avoid a
famine.

//The danger from genetically modified seeds is
moderate, but not immaterial//

Yes, but it pales into insignificance compared to
the danger from non-modified plants.

If you want to list the top 10 ecological disasters
caused by plants, I would bet [8th]'s favourite
teapot that more than 9 of them would be from
non-native but perfectly natural species.

It is surprisingly difficult to create an engineered
plant, with one or two extra genes, which can do
more harm to an ecosystem than a natural non-
native plant with 40,000 genes honed by millions
of years of evolution.

Top of the list of introduced plants which have
wrecked ecosystems are:

I used to think the problem with GMOs were that
somehow the modifications were bad for us, but
that is NOT the problem. The problem is that
GMOs are bread to be immune from poison, so that
can then be soaked in them. The problem is WE
were never genetically modified to immune to the
poison.

//Anyone who's proposing a radical change to our
methods of food production needs to explain
where they plan to find 500 million tons of
biologically available nitrogen per year.//
[Wrongfellow], please read your own link or my
second post that explains nitrogen fixers. And no
I did not think that we would run out of
atmospheric nitrogen, only energy to convert it
into a usable form. Again READ YOUR LINK on the
process and see "35% of the world's natural gas
production is consumed in the Haber process (~1
2% of the world's annual energy supply".

//Monsanto sells seeds that farmers choose to buy
in a competitive, open market because the seeds
offer better yield.// They used to, but now they
block competition by making it illegal for farmers
to save their own seed EVEN IF IT IS NOT
MONSANTO SEED. If they allowed the market
decide they would not loose all their business, but
they would loose a percentage, so they leverage
the government to block competition.

//the only way to mitigate the danger is to build
up a massive store of genetically varied seeds.
That wont' be done by farmers. To expect it is to
expect them to use less efficient methods for the
greater good.//
I would never expect anyone to sacrifice profits
for some greater good. Farmers are switching for
the right reason and that is profits. The sticking
point is not profits, but debt. Farmers are not
wealthy and combines cost ~$500,000. So once you
have gone into that hole, it is hard to climb out.
So they are stuck there for life, but....the
AVERAGE age of a farmer in the US is now 60, so
most of them don't have much time left. The
children of these farmers don't want to take over a
life that has no future, so most of the farms will be
absorbed by massive farms that have the scale to
be profitable and the rest will either lie fallow or
be picked up by those that will do something
better. They will be the ones who will expand
diversity because smart farming requires the
diversity.

//The problem is that GMOs are bread to be immune from
poison, so that can then be soaked in them. The problem
is WE were never genetically modified to immune to the
poison.//

That's true, if a little melodramatic, of some GM crops.
On the other hand, glyphosate (Roundup) is immensely
less toxic to humans (and most other animals) than just
about any other herbicide. It's very much less toxic than
the broadleaf weedkillers that are used with cereal crops,
for instance. You can actually eat glyphosate, though it's
not recommended.

As for bees, as far as I am aware they are not suffering
from the use of glyphosate, except insofar as there are
fewer weed flowers around.

The point is, farming in general isn't good for wildlife.
However, conventional modern agriculture with
traditionally-bred crops, and the use of traditional
herbicides and pesticides to protect those crops, is
overwhelmingly the main problem.

If I'm mistaken, and you can cite a case of glyphosate-
resistant GM crops (and the use of glyphosate) being
worse than the use of traditional crops and traditional
herbicides, I'd be interested.

//illegal for farmers to save their own seed EVEN IF IT IS
NOT MONSANTO SEED// Now that is something I didn't
know. Can you provide any more information on that?

The best way to fight the likes of Monsanto is to keep insisting that any products containing their products has a label on it, so people can make the decision that they don't want to consume Frankenstein contaminated food. The more they protest about this action the more proof there is that they have something to hide and the more effective the boycott becomes.

The real problem here is people are allowed to promulgate whatever hysterical nonsense they like without any fear of reprisal or having to prove their claims. I have no problem with Monsanto and their ilk having to label their produce as GMO  containing, no problem whatsoever. But I do think they should be able to sue you for making defamatory statements.

The point here should be to allow people to make an *informed* choice. Disinformation, sensationalism and outright bullshit does nothing to help that.

//The background behind the statement that
Monsanto has made it
illegal for farmers to keep seed from non-Monsanto
crops.//
Watch "Food Inc." at 75 minutes in you meet one of
the remaining seed
cleaners who is being sued out of business for
suspicion of cleaning
GMO seed. Guilt until proven innocence. It is on
Netflix, which I think just came to UK.

// But I do think they should be able to sue you for making
defamatory statements.// Ha - everyone already has the
right to sue whomever they want, including Agent Orange
Maker Monsanto. What I would like to see on all products
containing Genetically Modified Organisms are these words
in bright dayglo to highlight them. 'This product proudly
contains substances created by Monsanto. Monsanto reject
any association or connection with the term Frankenstein
Food and will sue anyone using this term in order to protect
their massive profit margins. Monsanto also do not like
people
to constantly create reminders connecting them with the
toxic product Agent Orange!'

//The real problem here is people are allowed to
promulgate whatever hysterical nonsense they like
without any fear of reprisal or having to prove
their claims. I have no problem with Monsanto and
their ilk having to label their produce as GMO 
containing, no problem whatsoever. But I do think
they should be able to sue you for making
defamatory statements.//
Sadly they do. It must be great to have 75 lawyers
on retainer just hunting people down and suing
them. I could try to defend myself by asking that
they prove that the statements are untrue, but to
even make that request would probably cost me
more money than I have made in my entire life. So
don't worry Monsanto is more than able to sue and
destroy people's lives for any reason they want.
They will be OK.

A viral trend for wearing "FUCK MONSANTO" T shirts will be hard to quell. A nice image of a tomato with a rusty nut and bolt through it, sprouting from a test-tube, and a speech bubble that delivers the message "say hello to Frankenstein's tomato" will add to the effect.

// And which crops are treated with Agent Orange?// Who knows? Ask Monsanto and believe the answer if you're totally naive. Some American personnel actually drank this stuff to prove how safe it was. Where are they now? (see last link)

Here's a simple question for you [Max] Did Monsanto lie about Agent Orange, re it's safety?

//Here's a simple question for you [Max] Did
Monsanto lie about Agent Orange, re it's safety?//

Here's a simple answer - I have no idea. Given
your question, I presume the answer is "yes".

On the other hand, Tramadol is a widely-used
painkiller made by a highly respected German
pharmaceutical company. In the 1950s, they also
developed Inmunoprin, a widely-prescribed drug
for morning sickness, also known as Thalidomide.

So, what was your point again?

To be honest, I dare say that Monsanto is a
money-chasing megacorporation who doesn't need
my sympathy. However, running in small circles
shouting "frankenfood" in 2014 just makes you
look silly.

It does hint at an idea, though. Following the Free Software concept, place Perfectly Ordinary genes and genomes in the public domain, and require any proprietary genomes to be free of public domain code - modified or not.

Hmm. In what way? If I want to modify an organism
by inserting one or more genes, in general I can do
so. Specific modifications (eg, a potato with gene X
to resist blight) or applications (eg, using sequence
Y as a diagnostic marker for disease D), or novel
synthetic genes might be patented, but what "<>"
did you have in mind?

//running in small circles shouting "frankenfood" in 2014 just makes you look silly.// Looking silly is something that I take as a compliment. Boycotting and saying NO to the likes of Monsanto is everyone's choice, but the point is Monsanto do their damndest to take away that choice.

Given that they were complicit with the lies about Agent Orange, they cannot be trusted with anything else. I actually detest Monsanto, and regard those who approve of them of being in possession of a diminished intellect and a reduced capacity for empathy.

I want to live in a better world. That means one where companies like Monsanto cannot bully people and cause them to be forever mortgaged to their dubious products. Fuck Monsanto - eat natural whole-foods and not Frankenstein's chemicals!

I find it a little sad when conversations like this die off. It's genuinely fascinating to hear the views of people who's opinions and background are so obviously different from my own. My opinions are fairly strongly held, because, well, I've thought about them a fair bit, but that doesn't mean I don't want to hear others, and it certainly doesn't mean that I assume others' opinions are ill-formed (although their written arguments might be).

I was genuiniely interested in finding out how your opinions [xenzag], and probably as well [pashute] had formed, especially as strongly as they are. More so, I'd like to hear calmly stated proposals for how things could be done differently (and effectively, of course).

I suppose what got me offside was the a-priori assumption that GMO = bad (in all cases), coupled with what seemed to be an irrational level of hate, multiplied by a smug presumption of superior knowledge and foresight as to how things should be done. That sort of thing just rubs me up the wrong way.

Anyhoo, in terms of the idea, it doesn't float for several good reasons attached to the mfd's above. There might be some value to the sentiment, however, but someone is going to have to make some rational arguments, with evidence, and with suitable alternatives suggested, in order to pique the interest of this little black duck.

Nobody forces anybody to do anything. If a farmer has a choice
between two bags of seed, it's up to him to decide which one to
choose. If some consumers want x, let them by x, if some consumers
want y - that's their choice too.

Where there *are* potential problems is when production methods take
advantage of, or expose so-called "externalities" to an extent that
other people end up subsidising them. As long as those externalities
are well understood and steps taken to stop them from getting out of
hand, we should all be fine.

An example of such an externality getting out of hand might be the
use of trees on Easter Island to create the many statues there, and
it's resultant economic collapse into starvation.

I don't think there are many of us here qualified to categorically
state what externalities threaten our continued existence - but it
seems that there are some concerns out there that ought to be
monitored - if Monsanto have the prescience to care about their
profits 100 years from now, it would serve their interests to take
note of these externalities and avoid exploiting them to any such
point of failure themselves also.

Meanwhile, there is a resurgence in "Ancient Crops" and seeds from
times gone past are widely available for anyone interested in
persisting;
flax - highly prized for a wide range of uses, straw, fibre and
linseed oil
spelt - great flour grain
The uses of which are quite applicable to small-holdings - and with
appropriate management can provide food, fuel, and industrial
products (linseed oil is amazing in terms of what can be made from
it) So diversity is preserved, albeit in relatively small pockets -
pockets nonetheless that are vigorous and healthy and which might be
self-sustaining enough to re-seed should anything untoward occur with
the less diverse use of industrial product.

There's also a strong interest in "permaculture" which despite being
literally jam-packed full of hippies, is also an immensely high-tech,
low-impact set of evolving techniques and practices that work equally
well in North America as it does on the African plains.

While there is a lot of knee-jerkism and harking back to "nature" and
a pretend time when man was in harmony with his environment - what's
really important is what works, and reducing waste, and ensuring what
we do today doesn't block paths that might have been available
tomorrow. We don't know what will happen tomorrow, but in the past,
keeping some diversity around has helped preserve life through
catastrophic collapses of large, non-diverse organisations.

Yes, but I meant in what way does [SM] mean that freely available sequences are not public
domain.

// [MB] My own recent take on DNA is that plant, animals, humans etc are all made of
the same stuff and it doesn't matter whether you splice, inject or engineer something
weird, nature has already done it anyway. So called GM is just a faster way of mucking
around with DNA than nature. Confirm that and that's the Frankenstein argument blown out
of the water. //

Yes, pretty much. Wheat, for example, is a hexaploid fusion of three ancestral genomes.
Do that by GM and you'd be pilloried. However, GM does offer the ability to move genes
between species that wouldn't normally hybridise, and hence achieve results that would
take thousands of generations of selective breeding. Also, GM can be used to introduce
traits that are useful to us but have no net survival advantage in the wild. (The same is true
of natural breeding, of course - modern wheat wouldn't do well in the wild.)

//Lastly, does all fast growing stuff taste like cardboard ?//

Yes. But mainly because it's been selected for fast growth and not for flavour. Big shiny
apples sell well.

Many current crops (for example, almost all commercially-grown strawberries) are polyploid:
chemicals (usually) have been used to cause them to double, triple or Nple their
chromosome set. Polyploid plants are generally bigger and fatter, which is why your
strawberries are the size of hens eggs. This isn't considered "GM".

There's an argument to be made that the overfast
adaptation that GM foods allows might cause an
environmental imbalance and I recognize and respect
the argument that too much of any certain species of
hybrid leads to ecological weakness, but to be
honest don't understand much of the anti-GM hype.
And I'm even a Ford guy.

[Custardguts] Bravo. I love a good discussion, but
was going to let this one die as it seemed to be
degenerating into a shouting match which seems a
disservice to this place but if we can keep this
civil, I'd like to continue. This may be the most
important issue of our lives, so it is worth the
effort. Sadly I don't understand the "duck"
reference is that a reference to the kids book?

[FlyingToaster]//Is there an idea here somewhere
?//
Yes, reasonable people have no problems with
people or corporations making money by providing
better products that people choose freely, even
boat loads of money, but I think it is also
reasonable to complain when they then use that
wealth to pervert the system to eliminate choice
so that people can no longer choose freely.
Monsanto has been accused of taking those steps,
and if that is true, then setting up a system to
combat those tactics is also reasonable and not
advocacy or consumer advice. It is an idea to
provide a mechanism for people who want to buy
non-GMO products to support non-GMO farmers so
they can have that choice if they so choose. If I
want organic eggs, I can choose to pay more and
buy organic eggs. If I'd like to buy non-GMO soy, I
don't get that choice.

[Zeuxis]//Nobody forces anybody to do anything.
If a farmer has a choice between two bags of
seed, it's up to him to decide which one to
choose. // True, but if all the farmers around you
are using GM seed and some blows over to your
fields and that is found, you will be sued for
stealing seed. So now which seed do you choose
next year?

To save your own seed, you need what is called a
"seed cleaner", which is an expensive machine
which is used only once a year. If someone keeps
dragging all the people who own them into court
so that they can't make a living, then they stop
doing it. If a farmer doesn't use GMO seed but
some blows onto his farm, then he decides to save
his seed and the GMO seed is found then two
people are fined or loose their livelihoods. Now
which seed would you choose? What if a highly
motivated Monsanto employee decided to
"accidentally" spread some seed onto a non-GMO
farm and then "discover" the plants later? This
sounds like a great way to sell seed, so there is
bound to be a some unscrupulous people who
would do it. Monsanto itself would have never
been involved, except that they created the
environment where these tactics could work.

//Freely accessible <> public domain.//
If you are Monsanto and have the ability to
cheaply DNA type any seed you find, the lawyers
to then patent that DNA and then you look
overseas and find some unique seed that really
succeeds in an environment. Would you patent it?
If you did then how would anyone know that it
isn't created by Monsanto? If you were a farmer
whose family did create this seed by careful
breeding, but never patented it, how do you
prove your case?

// True, but if all the farmers around you are using GM seed and some blows over to your fields and that is found, you will be sued for stealing seed.//

Well maybe, but not by any reasonable legal system. Voice's link above ("Monsanto seed case") doesn't apply to the example you give. Has this actually happened, or is this a real concern, or is it just scaremongering?

Laws about GM in Europe vary quite a bit - some countries are decidedly anti-GM, for example requiring a farmer wishing to grow a GM crop to ensure than no related crop is grown within some enormous range.
I think that realistically, 'contamination' of a crop from distant fields isn't generally a serious technical concern - cross-fertilisation can be kept to acceptable levels with a fairly short isolation distance.

Furthermore, it seems to me that if the law is being abused by big companies then it probably makes sense to change the law.

//If you are Monsanto and have the ability to
cheaply DNA type any seed you find, the lawyers
to then patent that DNA and then you look
overseas and find some unique seed that really
succeeds in an environment. Would you patent it?
If you did then how would anyone know that it
isn't created by Monsanto? If you were a farmer
whose family did create this seed by careful
breeding, but never patented it, how do you
prove your case?//

That's a general problem in GM and SynBio.
However, the courts tend to find the opposite to
what you're suggesting.

In a recent case, a new tomato variety (not GM, as
it happens) was stolen and brought to market
before its producer did so. However, the courts
decided that the stolen genome *could* have
arisen naturally (ie, could have been created
independently), and the (probable) thief was
acquitted. If I remember correctly, it was Monsanto who had created the variety in the
first place (I may be wrong - I only remember it was one of the big plant breeders), and
who lost several $100M as a result.

In the case of GM plants,it's generally easier to
prove that you created them, because the genes
are (more or less by definition) not found in other
cultivars of that species.

This whole topic is being revisited now, in the
context of SynBio, and it'll probably become
standard (if not a requirement) to digitally
watermark made genomes to prove who made
them.

If Monsanto really are pulling that trick to sue
farmers who, by genuine accident, keep and
regrow a few Monsanto seeds, then that's pretty
scummy. However, the scumminess has little to
do with the fact that the Monsanto seeds are GM -
they could (and maybe do) pull the same trick
with non-GM varieties.

To confuse matters a little, it's also worth
mentioning that plants are covered by what's
called "breeders' privilege", which says that if you
take someone else's variety and cross it to
produce a "new" variety, then you (not the
previous breeder) own that new variety.
However, things get muddy when it comes to GM
crops and their derivatives.

[MB] or anyone else who understands this stuff better
than I, what are your opinions on the studies of
animals fed GMO food? Specifically the effects on
liver and stomach lining. I could give links but I don't
want to divert the discussion by siting a badly
performed study. I assume all sources are biased, but
I have lately heard some that I deem credible, so I'd
like to hear your opinions on the matter.

However, most GM crops contain genes transplanted from other plants
(for example, the glyphosate resistance gene was taken, I believe,
from a fortuitously resistant plant - I may be wrong, but that's a
typical situation).

These genes cause the GM crops to make the same protein that the
original (source of gene) plant would have made.

So, unless you're talking about a gene that encodes a protein that
makes a toxin, or something along those lines, it's not going to have
any effect on animals.

Some other GM crops have had certain genes knocked out (eg, I
believe that they made longer shelf-life tomatoes by removing a gene
that made a protein that made them go mushy; I may have the details
wrong, but again it's a typical scenario.)

Let me ask a question: suppose you go to your local supermarket, and
you see a tropical fruit that you've never eaten before. It's not GM,
it's just exotic. Would you seriously worry about eating it?

No, as I mentioned, my worry is not about the GM
itself. People have been GM-ing plants and
animals for millennia. It is just lately that the tools
got better, so the changes got faster. I do have
some worry if the donated gene was from
something like a "destroying angel" mushroom, but
mostly my worry is about the "RoundUp Ready"
GMOs and the Glyphosate that the plants are
sprayed with.

Almost anything is fine in small doses, but now
that almost everything we eat has "RoundUp
Ready" corn and/or soy, if there is even a tiny
residue getting through then our exposure is not
small. As has been mentioned above, our history
of chemical hazard testing is far from perfect, as
we as humans are far from perfect and especially
so if large amounts of money can be made.

If you add to that the supposition and some at
least anecdotal evidence that animals fed
with GMO feed show visible signs of issues at
slaughter that are not seen on animals on non-GM
feed, and I get more worried.

Absolutely true. The best that can be said,
though, is that glyphosate is _almost_ certainly
less harmful than many other weedkillers that it
replaces, and also has a much shorter persistence
time on plants and in the soil. So, as herbicides
go, it's the lesser evil.

//anecdotal evidence that animals fed with GMO
feed show visible signs of issues at slaughter// If
you mean the study that was widely reported (oh,
ten years ago plus) on rats - the potatoes (I think
it was potato) that they were fed had been
engineered _to produce_ some compound which
was expected to affect the rats - the potatoes
hadn't been engineered for use as human
foodstuff. So yes, if you engineer a plant to
produce some toxin (or more of a natural toxin, as
in potatoes), it will have an effect.

If there are other studies suggesting that
"benignly" engineered crops have an effect on
animals fed them, then I'd say (a) I doubt it and
(b) depends what the effect is: feed me
something with more protein or fat in it, and it'll
have an effect.

//Not necessarily... That protein might not be
very good for the animal it is now being fed to//

By and large, you can eat any protein you like -
proteins tend to get denatured as soon as they hit
the stomach, and broken down into small
peptides and amino acids before they're absorbed.
There are exceptions, but they tend to be pretty
obvious ones.

//That gene's removal might decrease the
nutritional value of the tomatoes, or maybe
reduce the level of antioxidants.// Yes, that sort
of thing is possible.

//If it's SO safe and SO great for us, they ought to
be boasting about it on the labels. What are they
trying to hide?//

I think they're caught between a rock and hard
place. Monsanto fucked up in a major way (ie,
they've been aggressively profiteering), which
underlies a lot of the objections to GM. Most of
those objections (ie, to GM per se) are irrational,
but the more you say "it's safe", the more people
think it's not. So, what do you do?

Of all the technologies that affect our food, GM is
probably the safest for the consumer, compared
to:
*"traditional" herbicides and pesticides
*new exotic fruits with no long-term history of
safety by Western standards
*barbecuing (all those benzpyrenes)
*wood-smoking (ditto)
*high-fructose corn syrup
*intensive farming coupled with the use of growth
hormones and antibiotics (low but significant risk)

For the environment, GM crops are not zero risk,
but they're a much smaller threat than
accidentally or intentionally introduced non-
native wild species.

So, if you want to get worked up about food, I
wouldn't start with GM. I don't work in GM crops,
and I don't have any particular axe to grind, but I'd
happily eat any GM food you want to serve me.
However, for most people it's new and not
understandable, I guess.

1) We have a history of introducing substances into our environment (take mining, or any pollutant) and THEN years later going "Oops, we made a LOT of money from this, but we're sorry to inform you that your children and theirs will have to deal with this forever" . So even when under analysis it's a low risk issue, people are not trusting. And the more money the players have, the less trusting the people are.

Well, it's not me that's trying to sell them GM and,
in any case, I wouldn't trust me particularly.

You know what's really strange, though? I'm
involved in a fairly new discipline called synthetic
biology, which is basically a much more
engineering-oriented and ambitious extension of
GM. We recently organised a conference which
included a public session, and I was astonished
that not a single person was up in arms, out of
maybe 2-300 people. On the contrary, synbio is
generally seen as a green technology, which is
welcome but unexpected.

//We recently organised a conference which included a public session, and I
was astonished that not a single person was up in arms, out of maybe 2-300
people. On the contrary, synbio is generally seen as a green technology, which
is welcome but unexpected.//

Because nobody knows what it is yet. Everybody already knows that GMO
translates to evil dangerous corporate Frankenfood, but Greenpeace and
their ilk haven't had a chance to turn their sights towards the latest effort by
Big Agra to repackage their poison and force it down the throats of an
unsuspecting public. Rest assured, though, that as soon as they can extract
enough blood from children in impoverished African nations to refuel their
propaganda machines, they'll be coming for you and your so-called science.

One of the first synbio products to hit the ground
will (probably) be a disposable biosensor for
arsenic. It's been developed (by a mate of mine,
actually) to monitor the variable levels of arsenic
in groundwater in Nepal. The aim is to be able to
distribute it for free, so that villages can monitor
their water. At the moment, because regular
monitoring isn't possible, tens of thousands of
people suffer from chronic arsenic poisoning,
which isn't pretty.

Other applications include better fermentation
organisms to make biofuel from waste (such as
bagasse and straw) which isn't economic to use at
present. That means that there'll be more biofuel
without siphoning off foodcrops. The aim also is
to enable this biofuel generation to be done by
local communities, rather than centrally, so you
don't end up hauling your feedstock in one
direction and your biofuel in the other.

Another application (already in use) is to eradicate
malaria- and dengue-fever-carrying mosquitoes
from inhabited areas without using shitloads of
broad-spectrum pesticides.

//It also helps that the avowed goals don't
nominally include overlord status for the
corporate facade//

At the moment, most (I'd estimate 50-60%) synbio
projects are aimed at:
decentralization (local biofuel or dyestuff
production)
waste utilization or disposal (biofuel again; oil
spill remediation)
better resource utilisation (biosensors for water
stress, so you irrigate only when and where you
need to)
environmental monitoring (air and water
pollutants)
chemical-free and species-specific methods of
pest control (mosquitoes; potentially tsetse flies)

Obviously, this is just a front for the other 40% of
synbio projects which are aimed at draining the
blood of African babies to feed our massive PR
machine as [ytk], with his usual perceptive and
educated insight, has pointed out.

I'm horrified. Another piece of deliberately
deceptive marketing is that cheese triangles are
actually sectors of a circle, which means that
somebody, somewhere is accumulating millions of
small bow-shaped pieces of cheese.

I don't think you understand, [Max]. Anti-GMO campaigners cannot be dissuaded by appealing to reason or
compassion. If they could, there wouldn't be an anti-GMO campaign to begin with. No matter how thoroughly you
demonstrate that GMO foods are perfectly safe, and both healthier and better for the environment than organic
farming, there will always be a fearmongering contingent that continues to disseminate FUD about GMO foods
and the science behind them. The process is much the same as what happened with DDT. Rachel Carson writes a
book filled with half-truths and unsupported scientific claims, and the next thing you know we have to ban the
most effective tool against malaria yet known to mankind. Screw the dying Africans, we've got to (maybe)
protect the eggshells of some birds from (possibly) thinning a bit.

That sort of attitude is what spurred my comment about the blood of African childrennot any of the research
you're talking about, which I wholeheartedly support. The problem, sadly, is nothing less than the utter
indifference of the privileged in wealthy nations towards the suffering of those in the developing world. When,
several years ago, the US shipped large quantities of genetically modified corn to feed people in Africa, the
governments of some countries refused to distribute it to a starving populace. Why? Because these countries
relied on agricultural trade with several EU nations, all of whom threatened to cease such commerce with any
country that permitted the distribution of GMO food. The fear was that some of the corn might be planted,
rendering the entire crop unfit for consumption for Europeans. As a result, countless Africans continued to
starve. But hey, at least nobody in France had to run a risk of accidentally being exposed to that evil corporate
poison, so y'know, there's that.

The problem you're going to face is that you can demonstrate all of the benefits that can come of your research,
but as soon as people start making the connection between synbio and GMO there *will* be a backlash. What if it
gets in the water supply? What if the technology is integrated into food? What if it starts infecting existing
crops? All the anti-GMO campaigners need to do is to raise a few questions like that, regardless of whether they
can be answered satisfactorily, or even if they are scientifically valid questions in the first place. Again, if people
actually listened to the answers science provides regarding existing GMO technology, there wouldn't be a
campaign against it.

My advice is to distance yourselves from the notion that synbio is a form of genetic modification as much you
possibly can. I'd start by deleting your comments in this thread, unless you want to read the headline Eminent
Scientist Admits SynBio Is a More Ambitious Form of GM.

//I don't think you understand, [Max].//
Well, in that case, sir, I doff my hat to you and
retract utterly my assertion of your anality.

Synbio has always been very up-front about what
it does - we want to engineer living organisms in
more complex and useful (and ambitious) ways
than the simple GM of the last few decades (which
generally seeks to just add or remove a gene or
two). Yet despite this, nobody much seems to
think it's anything but good. We think it's good
too, but I'm surprised at how little opposition to it
there has been from the usual quarters.

There's not much mileage in distancing synbio
from GM, since they are basically the same (in
kind if not in degree). Better just to be honest
and say "this is what we want to do, and here's
why we think it's a good thing".

//There's not much mileage in distancing synbio from
GM, since they are basically the same (in kind if not in
degree). Better just to be honest and say "this is what
we want to do, and here's why we think it's a good
thing".//

I certainly hope so, but the cynic in me is still waiting
for the other shoe to drop.

If it was 2004, it wouldn't have been called
synthetic biology, even though the tools are
basically the same.

The distinction between traditional GM and synbio
is that the latter aims to apply more rational
design and engineering philosophy, usually to
build more complex and better regulated genetic
circuits. In contrast, traditional GM has usually
been about adding or removing one or two genes.

A lot of traditional (and simple) GM is now being
touted as synthetic biology, because it's the new
buzzword and there's lots of dedicated funding.

//in what way does [SM] mean that freely available sequences are not public domain//

The words "Coca Cola" and the (compiled) code of Microsoft Windows are freely available, but are not in the public domain. It's not likely that I could patent or release into the public domain a very slightly altered version of either without the express consent of the copyright holders.

The words "Good day" and the code for the Linux kernel are freely available and in the public domain. I could not patent a slightly altered version of either, and such an altered version would automatically be in the public domain.

Possibly the biggest political problem facing the world is the insidious transfer of rights and property and governance from men and women to corporations. The genetic modification of organisms is not inherently problematic; but corporate tyranny is.

Just to be clear, //Freely accessible <> public domain.// <> //freely available sequences are not public domain//.

//place Perfectly Ordinary genes and genomes in the public domain// may have been a poor choice of words; I should perhaps have said acknowledge that they are in the public domain, and insist that modified version of them are likewise in the public domain; as had been the case for nearly all of human history until a few decades ago.

To take another software example, the former Sun Microsystems manufactured hardware for profit, but released software developed at its own expense into the public domain, largely so people who bought their computers had nice software for them. Nothing would prevent Monsanto from doing the equivalent - manufacturing herbicides for profit, but developing public domain genetics for people to use with them.

[spidermother], you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of
copyright, patents, and trademarks. Every statement you just made
on the matter is incorrect.

//The words "Coca Cola" and the (compiled) code of Microsoft
Windows are freely available, but are not in the public domain.//

Coca Cola is not copyrighted. It's a trademark. You can publish the
words Coca Cola all you like. You just can't sell a product and call it
Coca Cola, because that trademark is owned by someone else. It
really has nothing to do with copyright law at all.

The code for Windows (compiled or otherwise) is decidedly *not* freely
available. It is copyrighted by Microsoft, and they license it to their
customers.

//It's not likely that I could patent or release into the public domain a
very slightly altered version of either without the express consent of
the copyright holders.//

You can't patent anything, because patents only apply to inventions.
In the case of Coke, the patent would only be applicable to the
beverage itself, and would cover the recipe used to make it. As part
of the patent process, you'd have to publish the formula, and nobody
else would be permitted to use it for several years after the patent is
granted. This is one reason why Coke has never been patentedthe
formula is a trade secret, and by patenting it they'd have to
disclose exactly how they make it to the public. But even if someone
else got ahold of the formula, it wouldn't really matter, because the
value of Coke is in the branding, not really the product itself.

You also couldn't patent a modified version of Windows, because
patents don't apply to copyrighted materials. When people talk about
software patents, they are referring to patents on specific algorithms
or processes, which can be patented, as opposed to any specific
implementation of an algorithm, which cannot (but it can be
copyrighted). You couldn't release Windows into the public domain,
because only the copyright holder can do so, and that's not you.

//The words "Good day" and the code for the Linux kernel are freely
available and in the public domain.//

It's incorrect to talk about the words good day being in the public
domain, because that only applies to an actual creative work. In order
to be in the public domain, it must be copyrightable. To be
copyrightable, it would have to be something fairly specifica poem, a
play, an essay, etc. A few common words strung together would not
be considered a creative work, so it couldn't be copyrighted. And since
it can't be copyrighted, it's not really in the public domain.

The Linux kernel is *NOT* in the public domain. It is copyrighted under
the GNU General Public License, which allows free use of the code for
certain purposes, provided that if you release your modifications to
the public, you must also license your code under the GPL. If it were
in the public domain, you could use the code for any purpose in any
way you likedfor example you could modify it, sell a compiled
version, and never release the source code. You cannot do that with
the Linux kernel without violating the copyright.

//I could not patent a slightly altered version of either, and such an
altered version would automatically be in the public domain.//

Again, you couldn't patent anything, because you can only patent
inventions. As for copyright, you could certainly use the words good
day in a creative work and copyright that. You could write a short
story that starts with Good day. You could paint the words good
day as a mural, and copyright that. In fact, you would automatically
retain the copyright to any creative work that you were the author of,
so no, it would not be released into the public domain unless you
chose to do so.

As I mentioned, the Linux kernel isn't public domain, so though you
can modify it, if you do so you must comply with the terms of the
license, which state that any such modifications must be relicensed
under the exact same license as the code you're creating the
derivative work from (i.e., you must release any such modifications
under the GPL, if you release them at all). In no case would any code
that is in any way derived from the Linux kernel ever be in the public
domain.

Also, you absolutely can copyright material derived from existing
works that are in the public domain. Being in the public domain means
there are no restrictions on how you use it, so you can create a
derivative work and copyright that. For example, if you were to
translate a Shakespeare play into modern English, you'd own the
copyright on that translation, even thought it's clearly derived from
material in the public domain. The only way your derivative work
would enter the public domain is if you placed it there by expressly
giving up all copyrights to the work.

////place Perfectly Ordinary genes and genomes
in the
public domain// may have been a poor choice of
words; I
should perhaps have said acknowledge that they
are in
the public domain, and insist that modified
version of
them are likewise in the public domain; as had
been the
case for nearly all of human history until a few
decades
ago.//

[spider], there weren't any "modified" (in the
sense of
consciously engineered) genes until a few decades
ago.

As it stands, all naturally-occurring genes are (as
far as I
know) in the public domain, regardless of who first
found
the organism that contains them, or who made
the effort
to sequence them.

If I modify a gene (for example, I make a gene for
a
temperature-sensitive mutant of a particular
protein), I
believe that IP can be claimed on that - that
seems
perfectly reasonable to me (I can't patent carbon,
but I could probably have patented carbon fibres).

If I invent something such as a diagnostic test
based
around a particular [natural] gene, I believe I can
patent
that test, but anyone can use the same gene in
other
contexts. Again, that seems reasonable (I can't
patent
aluminium, but I can patent a device made from
it).

As for Monsanto making their modified plants
freely
available, well, they make their money from
making
modified plants, just as Microsoft makes its
money from
software. That's not to say their business
practices are good, but then again Microsoft aren't
blameless either. As I mentioned above,
Monsanto have made
Golden
Rice quite freely available to farmers in
developing
countries where vitamin A deficiency is a fatal
problem.

Max, see link to GRAIN.org article regarding 'Golden' rice. It's quite an old article now but you might find the details about who invented & developed it, who now owns it and who administers its continued development amusing. Bottom line though, there's not much altruism going on here!

\\they make their money from making modified plants\\

Only partly true. Because I'm a truly sad person with no life whatever, I just went off and read the Monsanto Annual report. They actually make about two thirds of their money from their 'seed' business (modified & unmodified). A major aspect of their modification programme is to make their seeds 'Roundup Ready'. That is, resistant to the 'Roundup' pesticide sold by...Monsanto! Sales of 'Roundup' make up the other third of their profits. When Monsanto 'gives away' their seeds, it's like Mr Gillette giving away free razors.

//I probably wouldn't develop a crop that was resistant to somebody else's weedkiller//

Well true, it makes commercial sense but that's one of the problems I have with the whole GM 'industry'. Much, but granted not all, of it is geared toward ensuring that farmers can only use a particular company's seeds and thus control of the food supply falls, bit by bit, into the hands of a couple of large agri-businesses. That scenario is not equivalent with, say, monopoly control of the razor blade supply (not sure why I'm obsessing about razors), so the argument goes beyond mere commerciality and becomes a moral & political one.

Regarding Monsanto in particular, my position is almost the opposite of yours. I think focusing on just Monsanto is a mistake (it looks & feels like a witch hunt to me - hence my fishbone for this idea), it's the principles & set up of the whole industry that needs challenging.

Pashute (that's me, pronounced pa-shoot): Make
an unharmful uselsess patented seed gene, and
use Monsanto like clause in law to get seed back
to farmers that use sustainable methods, make
some money and feed the world.

== Against idea ==
* Max:
a. GMO is positive and necessary to feed the
world,
b. intensive farming takes up less land and
resources,
c. and any farming is harmful to the environment.
d. Was unaware of Food Inc. movie and featured
Monsanto dealings (answered by mrQED)
e. Any farming especially modern farming is
modifying foods.
f. Notes similar problem with Synbio and questions
the scope of the problem of the law system vs
Monsanto - also claims this is outside the scope of
the GMO discussion
g. Eating exotic plants presents thousands of new
genes vs. a single knockout or additive GM gene.
h. GMO per se is probably the least threat to the
environment compared to some "natural practices"
like introducing non native plants, or wood
smoking food.
i. Reveals he is into biosynthesis - surprisingly
conceived as "green" and widely accepted by the
public.

* Sophocles:
a. Dangerous to change system that works. Feeds
billions (in essence all of the human race.)
b. Pashute (and others) being emotional instead of
logical.
c. Countering Monsanto with genetics legitimizes
their claim, and will take huge resources.

* theirCompetitor:
a. the danger is moderate,
b. profits are a good thing for companies,
c. strong feelings on the topic are irrelevant, and
should be avoided
d. biodiversity in farming seeds can only be made
industrially (although it currently is not)
[bs0u0155] pointed out that science has already
produced a backup biodiverse seed bank, and
Voice replied that it is not meant or sufficient for
dealing with a famine due to unified genetics of
food.
e. (following xenxag's F-Monstanto T-shirt idea)
MFD - Customer choice advocacy

* FlyingToaster: not an idea
* not Morrison: there's no (mon)Santo clause
* Custardguts: Too much sentiment in idea.

* Zeuxis:
a. Farmers can choose. Nobody forces anybody to
do anything. (not aware of Food Inc etc.)
b. "Going back to nature" is a pretence and fad,
and is behind this idea.

* Loris: Doubtfully, but IF the law is being abused,
change the law.

* ytk:
a. sarcastically: Synbio is GM in disguise. and bad.
b. seriously: Anti GMO is irrational, emotional, and
driven by a fad caused by unscientific writers.
c. fretting with Spidermother over examples of
publicly available phenomena, legally not
permitted for use.

* DrBob: (in a twist) fishboned the idea, because
of seemingly singling out Monsanto for a witch
hunt, while the problem is with the food industry
setup.

------------------------------

== Leaning to pro ==
* pocmloc -
a. Pashute's idea is about preserving nature
b. Studies show intensive farming uses more land
(even on the short run)

== Pro idea ==
* MisterQED:
a. Pashute was talking about modern "sustainable
farming"
b. Current system has imminent danger to human
race.
c. Supports pashute with info about land use (and
over time: land waste) being wider in intensive
farming.

* xenxag: Detests industrial food companies and
anybody who supports them. Proposes T-Shirts
that will advocate a boycott.
* 2 fries short: agrees too much sentiment in idea,
but that permaculture is great.
* 21Quest: Probably GMO produces unsafe food,
(for people, plants or animals) but we cannot know
that: and not knowing is the problem.
* Normzone: Can't trust industrial mega changes,
that have been proven time and again to cause
long standing and widespread major damage.
* Spidermother: (IMHO correctly placing my idea)
The problem is corporate tyranny.
* DrBob:
a. Actually read the Monsanto annual report, and
confirms the claims against them.
b. Gave fishbone, because claims Pashute singled
out Monsanto as a witch hunt, while the problem
is with the food industry setup.

Even shorter summary of my view: GM is generally
good unless someone sets out to do something
bad. Monsanto makes GM crops and may well be a
bad company. By all means attack Monsanto as a
bad/draconian/domineering company, but using
GM as a stick to beat them with is like using
computers as a stick to beat Microsoft with.

[An aside - the following has nothing much to do
with anything being discussed here. Anyone who's
twitchy about GM and synthetic biology should
Google biohacking. There are large numbers of
enthusiasts now becoming adept at doing
synthetic biology in their bedrooms just as, a
generation ago, they would have been building
computers. Personally I think this is great, but if I
were going to be scared of GM I'd be a lot scareder
of biohackers.]

This is not about GE, but about making it illegal to
grow anything that isn't owned by giant
corporations.

Anyway, after you read my link, (just a sec, I first
have to OK this anno) I suppose you'll be a little bit
less sure about the GE plants and GEO issue itself
(which isn't really the topic of my idea, but
interesting in itself)

I would be happy if someone pointed out where in
my idea's wording or in my responses they find
emotions rather than a calm look at reality?

Anyway, in the meantime I re-wrote the Andrew
Kimbrell entry in Wikipedia including sources
substantiating his claim to fame, but also with
criticism I found, about his way with facts. So I
take back my words about the article on GE.

But, back to the actual idea - the main problem is
allowing these guys to take over all soy (and corn
and cotton) production, making it illegal for other
farmers to use any other seed, and in fact to work
without a draconian contract with them.

//I would be happy if someone pointed out where in my idea's wording or in my responses they find emotions rather than a calm look at reality?//

In the idea you use the phrases 'fight back' & 'fight them' which might be portrayed as aggressive. I don't mind them myself but you could have used less emotionally loaded words.

Also, in para 3 where you talk about marching through the Monsanto office with a machete and an AK and leaving the world burning in a field of it's own GM monstrosities, that could also be taken as quite aggressive.

[Later edit] Ah, I see that you've deleted that third para now in order to avoid further embarrassment.

[Bigsleep] - exactly what free market? They sue any
farmer who doesn't sign a contract with them, for
using their seed, which by has contaminated all seed,
so that no one can grow soy without their contract,
and the contract says you must buy all your seed
from them at their price. A similar process is
happening with growing animals.

It's a pity that that site uses fear-by-association hyperbole like "agent orange corn" and "the toxic herbicide 2,4-D, half of the highly toxic chemical mixture Agent Orange". Some trucks run on diesel fuel, half of the highly explosive chemical mixture ANFO. Whoopdey doo.

It's especially dumb because the presence of *actually* highly toxic dioxins in the old agent orange, and the potential for their creation during production and disposal of chlorinated organic chemicals in general, are excellent arguments for keeping a close watch and tight reigns on these companies.

//The super monocrop companies are creating
superweeds as a by-product//

Is that actually the case? Do you mean (a) that
the herbicide-resistant crops are becoming weeds
(b) that the herbicide resistance is crossing into
other species or (c) that use of the herbicide is
selecting for resistance in wild weeds?

//It's already got to the stage that the herbicides
used to protect supercrops will kill fruit crops if
drifting over the landscape.// That's a non-
sequitur from the foregoing. However, Roundup
has *always* killed fruit (and other non-protected)
crops if it gets onto them. It's a general
herbicide. So what's the "stage" that it's "already
got to"?

(a) probably not. Major food crops generally don't
compete well in the wild, and will be
outcompeted unless the area is sprayed with
glyphosate to select for them.

(c) probably, but that's an issue that only affects
farmers using roundup-ready crops, or those who
use glyphosate to clear fields before planting
regular crops. Glyphosate-resistant weeds are not
going to start attacking the local population with
clubs, because as soon as they're out of a
glyphosate-treated area they have no advantage.

//the weed thing, and Monsanto's world seed
domination and takeover attempts are both well
documented and clearly true//

I probably agree about the world seed domination
and takeover attempts.

However, as regards "the weed thing" - what I said
in my last annotation stands (and is, in fact,
supported by the article). Yes, glyphosate-
resistant weeds will arise in areas where
glyphosate is regularly used. This is true
regardless of whether glyphosate is used on
Roundup-ready crops, or whether it's used as a
total herbicide to clear land prior to planting
regular crops.

In any case, though, glyphosate-resistant weeds
are a problem only for farmers who use
glyphosate. Those glyphosate-resistant weeds are
not going to dominate in the wild (in untreated
areas) because they have no selective advantage.

//(a) probably not. Major food crops generally don't compete well in the wild//

What is this "in the wild" of which you speak? Weeds can be defined as plants growing where they're not wanted; one man's fish is another man's poisson. A farmer who wishes to grow a crop of clean wheat is likely to consider rape growing among his wheat to be a weed. If she wishes to use glyphosate as a selective herbicide to control broad-leaf weeds, she is likely to consider 'roundup ready' rape to be a worse weed than glyphosate sensitive rape.

//If she wishes to use glyphosate as a selective
herbicide to control broad-leaf weeds//

If she does that, then she really ought to go and
learn a little basic botany.

Glyphosate is emphatically NOT a selective
herbicide
- it will kill any non-resistant plant, be it broad-
leaf
(dicot) or grass (monocot - i.e. cereal crops,
grasses,
bamboo etc). That, in fact, is the whole point of
it.

//?// Wow, I thought I was being clear. Then again, someone did once say to me that while I often seemed to have a clear understanding, I didn't always use words that conveyed that understanding to those who didn't live inside my head.

"Weed" is not an absolute word. It's based on context. Thus a crop plant can be regarded as a weed if it is growing where it is not wanted, such as among a different (desired) crop. So "roundup ready" rape is a weed when it's growing unwanted in someones glyphosate managed wheat field, but not when it's growing in someone's glyphosate managed rape field.

A field prepared for one domesticated annual crop is a good habitat for another domesticated annual crop; keeping fields free of the *wrong* crop is a known challenge in farming; and contamination can come from previous crops, adjacent land, or seed stocks. Hence a food crop can act as a weed without needing extraordinary fitness in the wild.

An ability to compete well in the wild is not a necessary or sufficient condition for weed status - although it certainly helps!

//But the weed thing, and Monsanto's world seed domination and takeover attempts are both well documented and clearly true//

Fine. But What I'm seeing here is constant conflation of "monsanto is bad because of their monopolising activities" with "everything GM is bad, frankenstein crops, agent orange, chemicals are bad" waffle. Max is dead right - half of agent orange is not agent orange at all. Ethanol is a lovely intoxicant that is part of a lot of people's diets. Methanol (which is pretty much "half" of ethanol) is a deadly toxin wich causes optic nerve damage, and is lethal in ammounts as little as 30ml. Chemicals are complex. Anyway, agent orange was so bad for people because of contaminants.

The noise does not help your message. It is clear that Monsanto is carrying out questionable and probably illegal or at least immoral activities. The rest here is speculation and hysteria.

//Glyphosate is emphatically NOT a selective herbicide - it will kill any non-resistant plant, be it broad- leaf (dicot) or grass (monocot - i.e. cereal crops, grasses, bamboo etc). That, in fact, is the whole point of it.//

I must admit that I was relying on memory, but my understanding was that glyphosate (in low concentrations) has been used as a selective herbicide in cereal crops because dicots are more susceptible to it than monocots. I could easily be wrong. In any case, it is used to kill weeds in cereal crops by spraying before the sowing or emergence the crop.

//Roundup-ready crops become less attractive when the fields contain, as weeds, different Roundup-ready crops.//

Ah - but that's the great thing about a rumour.... there is no one to sue, only the boiling rage, and the fact that no one will believe a company like Monsanto no matter what they say, given all the lies that were told about Agent Orange. You can't tramp on a virus, no matter how big your boots are, and anyway, no one has started any such rumour. It's simply just conjecture and speculation as to the likely outcomes where such a rumour to exist and gain traction.

You're probably right. However, I suspect they'd just
sue some random people who helped spread the
rumour on social media. If there were no redress
against rumour-mongers then, for example, I could
spread a rumour that you were a terrorist or a child
abuser. If I did so, you would (if you had any sense)
take me to court with as high a profile as possible.
If you did nothing, people would assume you had
something to hide.

The fact is that "intensive" farming hasn't reduced the surface area devoted to farming, it has cheapened the final product directing the surplus into waste, animal feed, fuel production, and export. This market mechanism produced "economies of scale" that were false, a more rapid less efficient reaping of a greater land mass. Improving productivity meant fewer jobs, more land used up faster and cheap surplus to waste, animal production(waste) fuel production (waste) and crude export with value added import (waste). The end result is a spending of material wealth in the form of farm land for the maximal formation of profits in the least time. This might result in wealth for the few, but it diminishes quality of life for the many as well as squandering their future quality of life and the economic viability of the land and it's ability to support future generations. In short, intensive farming steals food from future generations while wasting most of the food value produced. The rotting feast of today is a famine 100 years from now.

// If you did nothing, people would assume you had something to hide.// I'd never "do nothing". I'd do something totally disconnected, and of a fearful nature. Too fearful and full of dread for words to describe, and something that involved the use of a lot of very hungry centipedes, and curry powder - lots of curry powder!

[xen], the technology exists. As time progresses, a couple of postgrads in a garage with a few thousand dollars worth of kit will be able to do the same thing.

And they will. Because they think they may make money from it, it's easy, and it's worth a go. If it fails, what have you lost ? Just switch to brewing meth instead. Think of it as Breaking Bad, but with DNA.

At least when it's under the auspices of a multinational corporation there's someone to sue. You won't win, but there is someone to sue. Two youngsters with no assets making GM organisms ? Who you gonna call ?

1945: The Nuclear Club had one (1) member (with the UK and the USSR waiting to join).

2018: The Nuclear Club is "Everyone apart from Vanuatu, Liechtenstein and Iceland*"

It's 1940's technology. If you have money and land, it's not hard. Despite all efforts to stop them, several nations have the technology already. Wake up and smell the napalm ...

So forget trying to stop GM, globalization, chemical weapons and nukes. The day of the "nation state" is over. Now, eat up your Soylent Green like a good little prole.

*Iceland doesn't need nukes as they have volcanos; they can shut down air travel over a significant area with no effort whatsoever, and that's a hell of a threat to be holding over Europe and North America ...

I would like to hear about one thing that xenzag actually
loves and enjoys for a change. Seriously, I do worry about
your blood pressure, ulcers, and sense of well-being. Surely
it'll be that which kills you, not the million-and-one evils you
perceive being foisted upon the world by the globalist-
capitalist- Monsanto- Trumpist- Pharmaceutical- Men-in-
Black.

Jeezus. $2 BILLION for something where there is probably
less than 1% chance that they were actually liable? That's
frankly ridiculous. It more or less guarantees that there will
be no innovation, no new products of any sort.

New medicines (and old medicines), for example, are pretty
much guaranteed to kill some people. The rationale is that
they save many more lives than they cost. The same can be
said of Roundup which, even if it were responsible in this
case, is safer than the herbicides it replaces. If this sort of
comedy show-trial becomes the norm, you can more or less
write off any prospect of new antibiotics, new anticancer
compounds, new drugs to fight Alzheimer's, new anything in
fact.

Monsanto were a shit company for lots of reasons. But this award of $2bn is a
farce. If people want to punish Monsanto, they should do it legitimately.

Out of interest, [xen], if a pharmaceutical company decides not to develop a
new hypertension medication because of the risk of this kind of comedy
lawsuit, will the relatives of people who die of hypertension be entitled to
$2bn each? No, fuck 'em. In ten years time, will the relatives of people who
are _actually_ killed by good ol' fashioned herbicides (you know, like 2,4-D or
atrazine etc) be entitled to $2bn? Will you chip in? No, fuck 'em. How about
the thousands who will die from air pollution because the risk of a single
death caused by a malfunctioning hydrogen fuel-cell makes it not worth
developing the technology? $2bn each? No, fuck 'em.

One of the problems with everyone being entitled to an opinion is that it
includes complete fucking idiots.

//if a pharmaceutical company decides not to develop a new hypertension medication because of the risk of this kind of comedy lawsuit// That's surprisingly weak logic for you Max. It's the fear of destructive consequences that goes a long way to ensure that products are safe to use. Rotten companies like Monsanto have shown that they don't care about any consequences such as the severe environmental damage caused by their toxic products, but being greedy they do care about financial penalties.

//It's the fear of destructive consequences that goes a long
way to ensure that products are safe to use// No, that was
my point. In the case of the Monsanto ruling, the ruling
bore no relation whatsoever to the "destructive
consequences". And their product (glyphosate) is an order
of magnitude safer (or less harmful, if you prefer) than the
herbicides it replaced.

I am not a fan of Monsanto, as I may have mentioned.
However, this case sets a precedent in which arbitrary
awards can be made by randomly chosen people. The
disproportionality of it is terrifying. I have a biotech, and I
am honestly working to develop cures for a spectrum of
diseases. However, if any of them ever get into use, it is
inevitable that they will kill some people - the same is true
of every therapeutic ever developed.

My company will not be awarded $2bn for every life it
saves, now, will it? And yet thanks to this precedent, it is
perfectly possible that it would be fined $2bn for each
death. Ergo, the chances of my getting investment to move
my company forward are reduced. Ergo, it is less likely that
I'll develop anything useful. Ergo, the net result is more
deaths.

Companies should be penalized for negligence or for
providing misleading information, and those penalties
should be proportionate. But the Monsanto judgement is
simply a lynching by the baying mob.

//it is perfectly possible that it would be fined
$2bn for each death// Are you planning on
unleashing mass termination products? I would
keep that information away from 8th. Meanwhile,
I've got bad blood. Can you cure that?

No, since [a] "bad blood" isn't a thing, [b] I'm not even in
clinical trials yet, [c] I wouldn't anyway and [d] I'm scared of
the liability in case you develop any other unrelated disease
or injury at any point in the future.

Surely the solution is to do the thing they always say you can't
do - put a price on a human life? Clearly it's more than $1,
but pragmatically it has to be less than $1bn. The law needs
some kind of guidance, or at least an upper bound. (In this
particular case, the two supposed victims are still alive, but
an upper limit still applies.)

//Surely the solution is to do the thing they always say you can't do - put a price on a human
life? Clearly it's more than $1, but pragmatically it has to be less than $1bn. The law needs
some kind of guidance, or at least an upper bound.//

Sure. I think here in the UK there's a tariff which is used for damages - at least for some
purposes.

This seems fairly pragmatic. The NHS occasionally makes settlements/pays damages, the
largest being something like a few million pounds when an error has caused an individual to
need lifetime around-the-clock care.

One can argue about whether these costs set are too low or high, but in general basing
damages on a tariff seems like the right way to go - it's just not the American way.

//a few million pounds when an error has caused an individual
to need lifetime around-the-clock care// In that case,
presumably the award reflects the cost of care; I wonder what
fraction of it is considered "compensation"?

Max - I'm surprised at your reaction to what is
totally obvious here. The award is a penalty for
decades of bad behaviour on the part of Monsanto,
and a clear signal to others of the potential
consequences of similar cavalier arrogance when it
comes to wrecking people's lives. I can well
imagine the Agent Orange victims queuing up now.

[Xen], that was _exactly_ my point. This is populist
punishment meted out under the pretext of an award to one
couple. It's the equivalent of saying "[Xen] is only
convicted of mugging, but we know she's guilty of murder,
so we'll hang her."

If people want to "punish" Monsanto for something they
think Monsanto has done, then (a) they should charge
Monsanto with that and go through the correct legal process
and (b) if the issues are technical ones, then the case
should be heard by a judge or jury with the appropriate
technical understanding.

Whatever you think of Monsanto, and whether or not
Roundup had anything to do with the couple's cancer, this
ruling is a perversion of justice.

No, it would probably be the dark ages. 'Immoral'
men were some of the first anatomists, likely doing
dark and perverse experiments that violated social
norms of the day. And from that primitive past,
science moved forward. The government learned a
great deal about syphilis from the Tuskegee
experiment. Should we cast aside every product that
benefited from that knowledge?